


Slow dancing in the darkness

by mjonesing (klassmartin)



Series: Music sounds better with you [4]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, MJ loves Peter 5eva, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, shockingly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klassmartin/pseuds/mjonesing
Summary: “When was the moment you realised Peter was The One?”
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Music sounds better with you [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921150
Comments: 27
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Spideychelle Shuffle





	Slow dancing in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coykoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coykoi/gifts).



> For the Spotify Shuffle Game: Aquaman by Walk the Moon

**“W** hen was the moment you realised Peter was The One?”

It’s the most typical of questions, something she’s been asked a thousand times over the years. By now, you’d think she has a pretty standard answer - and she does, _of course_ she does, because she remembers down to the smallest detail how it had felt to settle that knowledge into her bones.

But it’s not the answer they want. People want to hear about her decision to stay, how ‘true love’ kept her faithfully at his side through his worst days right at the beginning of their relationship. They want drama and tension and overly romantic gestures. They want to know about the two weeks she spent at his bedside after his closest brush with death last year. They want a romcom moment of two pairs of eyes meeting in the hallways on the first day of high school. Fireworks the first time they kissed. Sparks flying when his hand brushed hers as he accepted the handouts in decathlon.

Truthfully, she doesn’t remember the first time she caught a glimpse of Peter. He was just always there, lingering in the background until one day she bothered to take notice. Even then, his touch didn’t make her heart stutter the way it does now. And their first kiss? It was awkward and makes her cringe every time she thinks about it, especially when Peter describes it with that shine in his eyes because he’s an idiot who’s hopelessly in love.

And Michelle didn’t _choose_ to stay. Not for love, anyway. She stayed because, before the three days they’d spent working out how to transition from friends to dating, they’d been exactly that; _friends_. Peter was a friend who was innocent, wrongly accused, his life destroyed by a thirty second video clip. Why would she ever walk away from that? How could she ever let him face that alone?

Then there’s the time she’d rather forget. The one she refuses to talk about, even to him. _Especially_ to him. 

The thing is, her ‘moment’ came before those two weeks. It came like a gentle breeze, brushing against her cheeks as it whispered its truth before leaving her just as she was before. It was so simple that it makes her roll her eyes fondly whenever they ask, because how do you properly explain the absence of anything?

They’d been walking to the subway, rushing through the crisp autumn air to make it in time. It was cold but her coat and his hand in hers was warm, but before she could shiver, Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out her winter mittens without a glance in her direction.

And she knew. 

Michelle did not fall into love with Peter. She watched and learned and adapted her way into love. She stumbled and soared and crept. She kissed, caressed, moaned and shuddered. She danced and laughed and cried her way into it. She screamed and whispered and sang into his ear when he needed it. She fought and struggled and forgave. 

She walked, each step deliberate and considered without being spared a thought, because learning to be in love with Peter is as easy as breathing. 

Michelle has never believed in there being a perfect person to complete you, but if there is, she thinks Peter might be it.

Either way, she chooses him. Every day, every second. Michelle chooses to spend her life with Peter and he chooses to be with her, and that’s all that matters.

It’s why, wrapped around the fourth finger of her left hand, there sits a symbol of their choice.

It’s what she stares at as she begins to tell a story that isn’t entirely true; of a trip gone wrong, of two bridges and the thrill of returned affections, of three kisses and _I like it better broken._

It is missing some key details and a decade or so, but she knows the journalist won’t mind. After all, some things are better kept in the spaces between them. But the story of their beginning is her favourite to tell, if only because of what it represents; that while they never fell into love, it is the moment they first decided, together, to jump.


End file.
